Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

Hell it cost him the New York mayoral election, you think he doesn't have self control issues?

Black people aren't smart enough to commit fraud, silly.

I'll agree that the story is sorta meaningless but, let's be honest, people who go on about food stamp (or other forms of welfare) fraud aren't assuming a random distribution of criminals across racial lines.

At least she was clean?

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What the hell is wrong with people!?

See post #1410.

Definitely will be watching to see how he approaches it, and the inevitable fallout. Not sure if it's curiosity or just rubbernecking at this point. Either way it's at least worth popping a bag for.



Edited, Aug 31st 2016 9:43am by someproteinguy

If Trump proposes amnesty as part of the plan I'll be in danger of serious injury from falling off my chair laughing.

At press event after meeting, Trump says there was no discussion on who would pay for the wall. Pena says later that he told Trump first thing that Mexico would not pay for the wall.

Later, Pena spokesperson says "Trump didn't lie; Pena said that Mexico would not pay for the wall and there was no discussion about it"

I suppose that's one word for it. Irrelevant would be another. People don't tend to form their opinions (or stereotypes even) based on single outlier cases like what percentage of people committing food stamp fraud were white in a very small town where the population is over 99% white. They might, however, form opinions based on statistics (oddly enough in the same article) like that 26% of food stamp recipients are black, while blacks make up only 13% of the population. You know... relevant stats.

It is a great example of reaching though. I mean... really reaching.


Oh. As to the Trump thing today. I think that those who have a hard on for the whole "he'll deport everyone on day one" and "he'll build a massive wall and make Mexico pay for it!" narrative will be all aflutter about Trump backpedaling (either because they're pissed he did, or they want others to be pissed that he did). But I think that for the average person sitting at home watching this, who doesn't actively follow politics, what they saw today is an image of Trump that doesn't match up with the scary stuff they keep hearing. Which will likely be a positive for him. They also saw him meeting directly with a foreign leader and acting presidential (well, to a degree). Which will also be a net positive for him.

What struck me is that for the last several weeks one of the main criticisms I've heard being talked about wasn't his specific positions on this thing or that thing, but whether he could behave well in a diplomatic setting. The fear being that he'd just start calling people names and pissing them off or something. This event seemed to be designed to counter that idea. And I think it worked. The pundits will go back and forth for days talking about whether he changed his position, how it'll affect his support among this group or that group, but in all likelihood the net effect will be positive for him. Most people (well, those on any sort of fence regarding Trump) weren't waiting for him to confirm a super hard line position, but rather hoping that he wasn't going to hold to it.

One event like this, where people see Trump directly interacting in this kind of environment, counters a whole lot of speculative talk about Trump. Doubly so among the casual voter population.


I also find it interesting that Trump is going after African American voters. Not sure if that will actually work. But his whole "Democrats are the ones who are hurting you" narrative should probably not be so quickly dismissed by liberal pundits. Of course, I'm a bit biased because it's a position I also hold, so maybe I see it as something (maybe one of the only things) that's an actual positive in Trump's platform and approach. I kinda wish someone not Trump would have the cajones to make that same argument. But it's one area that the GOP has a bad habit of just shying away from and effectively giving up those potential voters.

We'll see if it has any impact at all, but I did find it interesting. And it's certainly more interesting than the article linked above (see how I brought this post full circle?).

Yeesh, I wasn't planning on submitting it to the world council for immediate action. Just a piece of fluff for a chuckle.

That's the only word for it, unless you want to tell me what else I thought it was. I didn't say YOU would think it was interesting.

The difference being that previously, the Left had to grab short clips, possibly taking things out to context to make those accusations. With Trump, they not only have the claims, they have him clarifying exactly what he meant which falls right in line with the claims.

Remember when you kept asking "How could Clinton not be winning by a million-thousand points against A SOCIALIST?????????????"

Yeah.

Trump lost at least one member of his "National Hispanic Advisory Council" following last night's speech and several others have called Trump's immigration policy a scam and are planning on pulling out.

So, uh... great outreach.